Relevance of the research on on-site sanitation

When the wastewater load from industry and towns was not yet controlled to the extent it is today, the load from on-site sanitation facilities and other non-point sources was neglected.

But as wastewater treatment plants and technology developed quite fast from 1970 onwards (Paper I), especially the phosphorous load from non-point sources became more visible in statistics as well as in water courses. Water quality in rivers and lakes downstream from major cities and industrial plants has been improving already for a couple of decades. Meanwhile, eutrophication of other waters has continued, especially in the southern and western parts of Finland where most of the people and active farms are situated. (Ministry of the Environment 1999)

Water protection activities with special focus on forestry, agriculture and animal husbandry have been going on for some fifteen years. Extra financial support has been received after 1995 when Finland joined the European Union and the Finnish Agri-Environmental Programme (FAEP) was introduced (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry 2005). This development was bound to lead to activities to improve on-site sanitation. And these activities made this research even more relevant. The described development can be simplified as in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Simplified development of water deterioration and protection efforts in Finland. The figure illustrates how water protection efforts are implemented to reduce the number of sources of pollution as the turn of the century. The question is: Will this trend continue?

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5.1.1 Practical needs for research on on-site sanitation

First of all, the history of defecation is just as old as the history of mankind. It is a basic need just like eating even though defecation has not been researched nearly as intensively as taking food. Excrements spread diseases, pollute waters, cause eutrophication of water courses, look ugly, smell bad and spoil surroundings. Thus, there is a real need to get rid of them.

The more water is consumed, the more wastewater is produced. There are some 700 000 people without a connection to a water distribution network in Finland while less than 40 per cent of private wells fulfil all the quality and quantity criteria for potable water (Korkka-Niemi, Sipilä, Hatva, Hiisvirta, Lahti and Alfthan 1993). Most of those people are undoubtedly willing to acquire a connection as soon as it becomes feasible. At the same time some 5 000 new summer cottages are constructed and another 5 000 old ones are equipped with modern water facilities annually (Reijonen 2002). This means a quite radical increase in water consumption and wastewater production.

This development is further hastened by general development in agriculture and animal husbandry. The number of active farms is decreasing while their size is increasing (Uusi-Kämppä 2004). As, for example, cattle sizes are getting bigger the volume of wastewater from milk production is also growing. Many rural development projects are having the same effect.

Increasing tourism, small scale wine, berry, jam etc. processing as well as horse stables are all activities that increase the wastewater load.

The new century brought along new laws and regulations concerning on-site sanitation (Paper IV and Chapter 8). It is obvious and absolutely necessary to research what kinds of management options are needed and acceptable to make on-site sanitation as successful as possible. This is especially true considering that totally new stakeholders are entering the field. Therefore, new rules for the game are needed.

One special problem waiting for a solution is appropriate sludge management. According to the Waste Act, sludge from septic tanks and wastewater containers is also considered waste generated by households and is thus to be collected and treated properly like any other household waste. There are several examples which clearly show that this does not happen in practise. Ekola (2003) found that only about 10 – 15 percent of all the sludge from on-site systems is collected and treated subject to proper monitoring and control.

Anon (2004 a) described in the 6^th October 2004 issue of the Aamulehti newspaper a court case where some companies in the sludge transportation business in southern Finland were suspected of giving false information about the amount of sludge transported to wastewater treatment plants. According to the newspaper, the companies had kept no record of the amounts. The amount of the sludge in question is not small: over 40 000 m³ of sludge in the nine year period of 1991-99. It is obvious that the cases described here are not the only ones in the country as was suspected in the article.

Viitala (2001) studied the performance of small sewage treatment plants in the Pirkanmaa region. She noticed quite a few problems in the operations of the plants designed for 10 – 150 person equivalents. The problems were mainly caused by the selection of the wrong technological solution or by inadequate operations and maintenance. The same was true also

in the United States according to Wynn (2002): even commonly approved systems can fail if they are not properly maintained.

There are a number of examples about the implementation of the new legislation which show the relevance of the research. Because of the nature of on-site sanitation the final responsibility - both by law and in practice - for dealing with wastewater lies with house owners, and as long as the rules are unclear there is the danger of a lot of resources being wasted.

One example was given by Ojanperä (2003): a Finnish family first installed a poorly functioning treatment unit and struggled with it for about four years until they had to replace it. This happened because they were no given proper recommendations or advice on how to follow the principle of BAT (best available technology) when selecting the treatment method.

Weather conditions are a factor that must always be considered in a northern country like Finland. Wastewater is also a big problem with summer cottages, not only year-round housing. The major difference between these two is that the former ones may be vacant for months. In winter conditions this brings the danger of the freezing of water equipment into the picture. Frozen piping, for example, bursts easily, and the whole building can suffer moisture damage. Thus, a totally different sanitation solution than flush toilet, should be developed for summer cottages (Reijonen 2002).

Different types of wastewaters generated in rural areas need different treatment solutions. The need for more advanced knowledge and information has given rise to a number of projects dealing with this issue. A recent project is called Waters in Food Chain. The project is aiming at securing and improving water quality in water courses by introducing more efficient wastewater treatment systems to all levels of small scale food stuff production. (Mäkelä 2004) The more new types and modifications of on-site sanitation systems are developed and installed, the more requirements are set for the persons operating them. And even the simplest ones need regular maintenance (Wynn 2002).

Even though this research is done in and for an industrialised country like Finland, the need of the rest of the world are not forgotten. Most cities in the developing countries cannot afford the necessary resources, in terms of water, money and institutional capacity, to provide flush toilet systems with appropriate centralised wastewater treatment (Esrey et al 1998). There are more than two billion persons without proper sanitation facilities in the world (Millennium Project Task Force for Water and Sanitation 2004) and especially those who live in slums and rural areas are not able to utilise the flush-and discharge systems. They are bound to so-called drop-and-store devices (usually pit toilets) (Esrey et al 1998). This research will hopefully also be helpful in considering the appropriate solutions for those billions of people.

When discussing the sanitation services in the developing and the industrialised countries, it is often forgotten that the issue has not been completely solved in the latter, either. The official service coverage figures are estimated to have decreased by 2 per cent between 1990 and 2002 (Stedman 2004). This shows that the issue of appropriate sanitation must be kept on the agenda continuously. In a sparsely populated country like Finland, centralised wastewater treatment systems are not possible everywhere just because of great distances. The costs

would be too high: the costs of constructing water and wastewater pipes from main lines onwards can cost up to 100 euros/m (Kankaansydän-Lahtinen 2003).

There are also problems that are common to Finland and the developing world: pit toilets in the latter and poorly constructed wastewater infiltration systems or leaking wastewater containers in the former can both pollute groundwater and the water well of the household in question or that of its neighbour (Esrey et al 1998, Holm 1999). Therefore, each society needs to increase awareness of the link between contaminated water and disease. The effective dissemination of different research results and/or experiences from actual cases of contamination as well as the reasons for it could lead to remarkable results in diminishing the negative impacts of wastewaters (Holm 1999, McCann 2004 a).

5.1.2 Environmental need for research on on-site sanitation

Recreational activities are valued more as people's free time has increased. While in the past water courses were considered mainly from the transportation, electricity production and water supply points of view, today swimming, fishing, sailing, etc. recreational uses of water courses are seen as important. Good water quality plays an important role in satisfying these recreational needs. (Figure 10) Increasing water consumption and amounts of wastewater are causing increasing leaching of nutrients into water courses and are accelerating the process of eutrophication.

Figure 10. Blue green algae bloom can be poisonous, thus preventing recreational use of water. A peaceful beach at Lake Vanaja in the summer of 2003.

Different branches of the Finnish tourism industry also depend on a clean and wealthy environment nowadays. Travel agencies are selling refreshing moments in pure nature.

(http://www.visitfinland.com) Actually, the need to improve on-site sanitation is based on the path dependence theory. After selecting clean nature as a marketing brand, we are forced to take care of the quality of water in rivers, lakes and the archipelago.

The eutrophication process of lakes and the Baltic Sea requires that we do our utmost to minimise the wastewater load independent of its origin. Figure 1 depicts this stage: National water protection targets and policies require the best possible rules and regulations and management practices in on-site sanitation to stop the deterioration of water courses.

One might think that on-site sanitation concerns mainly eastern and northern parts of Finland where distances between houses and villages are long and the population is small. Thus, it could be a surprise that there are some 116 000 persons outside sewerage networks within the operational area of Uusimaa Regional Environment Centre around Helsinki (Yli-Tolppa and Vaitomaa 2002). The wastewaters of these people are loading the Gulf of Finland together with other sources.

For an ordinary house and/or summer cottage owner the Baltic Sea can be a bit too "far away"

to worry about. The quality of the nearby environment of their own yard or village and water wells and/or springs is much more important to them (Figure 10). Where on-site sanitation has earlier been managed badly, it has had unpleasant effects on small rivers and lakes, and even some wells.

Inadequately treated wastewater is also a danger to ground water resources. In Hausjärvi municipality in Finland it was observed that 20 per cent of private wells did not fulfil the bacteriological quality requirements for drinking water (Tapaninen 1997). Some of these wells might have been polluted by wastewaters, some by surface runoff water. Failed septic systems are the most often reported source of ground water contamination in the United States and about 50 per cent of all known waterborne disease outbreaks in the USA are attributed to contaminated groundwater (Wynn 2002).

When discussing on-site sanitation from the environmental point of view, a more global issue should be considered: phosphorous. It is one of the nutrients causing eutrophication and is a limited natural resource. It is estimated that phosphorous reserves will be exhausted in about 60 years at the present rate of consumption. (Werner, Fall, Schlick and Mang 2003). That is why a new way of thinking about wastewater treatment, ecological sanitation, has been emerged. One of the basic ideas of ecological sanitation is “closing the loop” –idea (Figure 11), which aims at utilising the nutrients in urine and faeces in food production instead of wasting them by allowing them to leach into water courses (Esrey, Andersson, Hillers and Sawyer 2001).

DEFECATION

CONSUMPTION COMPOST